The very overtures themselves made by Mr Gladstone and Lord Granville on the 17th are a proof of the soundness of this view. Contrast the tone and substance of those overtures with Mr Gladstone's language during the autumn campaign, or on the first night of the session. The difference between them is hardly to be expressed in words; and although, if they stood alone, we do not think the Conservative leaders would have been justified in accepting them as affording the basis of an honourable settlement, they unquestionably indicated a far more open mind on the part of Ministers than had yet been displayed; and explained and amplified as they were the following day, we think the Peers and the Tory party were right in not rejecting them as the startingpoint of negotiations on the Redistribution Bill. They at least constitute an admission of the intimate and necessary connection between the two halves of the Reform measure, for which the Tory party have ceaselessly contended; and now, at the eleventh hour, that connection is solemnly and distinctly recognised by the Government. in every legislative change, and have shown that no Government, however powerful, can successfully treat them with contempt or indifference. Sir John Bennett, Sir Wilfred Lawson, and Mr Morley may, after this, agitate the country as much as they please against a hereditary Second Chamber; but its use has been too clearly shown, and the support it has in the national goodwill is too marked, to encourage serious politicians to follow their ragged banner. Henceforward Liberal or Radical Ministers will have to show increased deference to the House of Lords; for it must be patent to the least reflective of advanced politicians, that if so powerful a minister as Mr Gladstone, at the head of a majority of 140 in the House of Commons, at the end of a campaign conducted with the most lavish use of eloquence and intimidation, cajolery and menace, is obliged to haul down his flag, and enter into honourable terms of agreement with his opponents in that House, his successors in any similar attempt are not likely, to say the least of it, to fare any better than he has done. We have no wish to exaggerate the magnitude of the victory gained by the House of Lords, or rather by the Opposition, and we therefore will describe it in the weighty language of the principal London organ of Radicalism.1 "The Government have promised to bring in the Redistribution Bill at once, and to press it on by all means in their power. They have further agreed, as a preliminary, to give the Opposition an opportunity of coming to an understanding with them as to the principles and the lines of the redistribution scheme. The Opposition in the House of Lords, for their part, agreed to pass the second reading 1 'Daily News,' November 19. of the Franchise Bill, and promise to enter into consultation upon the scheme of redistribution with an earnest desire to bring the whole question to a speedy and satisfactory settlement. Furthermore, the Government declare that they will regard a failure on their part to pass the redistribution measure through the House of Commons next year, or any alteration of the measure which would constitute a serious departure from the principles agreed upon between them and the Opposition, as fatal to their Ministerial existence. The Government have receded from the demand that the undertaking of the Peers to pass the Franchise Bill shall be a condition precedent of the submission to the Conservative leaders of the Redistri bution Bill. The latter must be seen and approved' by Lord Salisbury before he will enter into any arrangement, so that the freedom of action of the Peers is completely reserved. These, divested of periphrase and technicalities, are the conditions which were explained by Lord Granville and Lord Salisbury in the House of Lords during yesterday's short sitting." That every desirable guarantee against future misunderstanding or unforeseen contingency has been thus secured, we cannot affirm n; but that every possible safeguard has been obtained, is, we think, not to be disputed; and it is satisfactory to know, that when the explanatory assurances of Mr Gladstone and Lord Hartington were communicated to the leaders of the Opposition on the morning of the 18th, there was no difference of opinion as to the advice which should be given to the subsequent meeting of the party, by whom it was accepted with practical unanimity. Irksome and annoying as were the demands made on Lord Salisbury and Sir Stafford Northcote during the recess, those statesmen must now feel amply rewarded for them by the practical success they have achieved in the matter primarily in issue, and still more by the increased hold they have so gained over the confidence of their followers, and by the manifestation of the inherent power and strength of the Conservative sentiment in the country at large. From this last sentence we will not admit Scotland to be an exception. The Conservative meetings at Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dumfries, and Aberdeen, were, in point of numbers and enthusiasm, in no whit behind any held under cover in England; and we confidently expect an improvement in the political complexion of our Scotch representation whenever a general election occurs. In all probability that election will not take place until the new system has been established; and no effort should in the meantime be spared to bring to the notice of the new electorate the salient points in the long career of alternate delay and rashness, parsimony and extravagance, advance and retreat, by which the Government has destroyed our prestige abroad, kindled the flames of war and rapine in South Africa, prolonged our military occupation of Egypt, added a penny to this year's income-tax, and opened out a prospect of still more grievous financial exactions for the year to come. The total absorption of all political interest in the parliamentary crisis through which the country may be said to be still passing, has rendered it almost impossible for either House to discuss seriously the important issues at stake in Egypt and South Africa; and there is too much reason to fear that the miserable policy of "rescue and retire," which is clearly discernible through the specious ambiguities in which Lord Wolseley's instructions are involved, will be acted upon; and that, after setting up some simulacrum of a government at Khartoum, if he reaches it in time to rescue its heroic prisoner, the British general will quickly perform the feat to which our commanders have become habituated, and "retire" from the position which all who know the country declare to be the very key of Egypt. For reasons best known to themselves, the London papers did not report Sir Samuel Baker's striking observations on this subject the other day at Ipswich; but they go so directly to the root of the matter, that we reproduce them, in the hope that even now public attention may be directed to the folly and danger of the policy they expose and condemn. "At this late hour I cannot speak to you much about Egypt, but I look with painful dismay upon the policy of the Government. You must recollect all the history of our associations with that great country. You must recollect that though the Delta has been known for a long time, the Nile upon which it existed was a mystery; you must recollect England first of all won the battle of the Nile-it was England who discovered the sources of the Nile, and it was England who first crushed the slave-trade. And now, when we regard that Delta, and we see that it is comparatively a handful of mud brought down by the river from the fertile regions of the Soudan, and we know that that river upon which Egypt's existence depends flows from this point and can be commanded from Khartoum, I do not see how any Government can be so ignorant as to abandon a point that will command the destinies of Egypt. I can assure you, gentlemen, that upon examining this question, that any hostile power in Khartoum can throw a dam through the Blue-hill and prevent the water from ever reaching Egypt; and the very existence of Egypt depends upon the holding of Khartoum. These are little trifles that our Government do not condescend to notice."1 The whole of Sir Samuel's speech will well repay perusal, and we hope he will give it to the public in a separate form. Four years ago General Gordon expressed his opinion on the question, by describing the Soudan as "the belly of Egypt"; and if Lord Wolseley obeys his instructions, and retires from that country after nominally establishing some makeshift government, as he did in Zululand, the same, or, rather, worse results may confidently be expected to follow. Against such a dereliction of duty, and so glaring an instance of obstinate fatuity, we at any rate raise a protesting voice. By despatching Sir Charles Warren, and placing at his disposal a sufficient and properly equipped military force, the Government have, however tardily, resumed the reins of empire in South Africa, and may fairly ask for at any rate an arrest of judgment on their past misconduct and abandonment of duty in that unfortunate country. The failure of Lord Northbrook's financial mission to Egypt is now tacitly admitted; and the Govern ment manifest the utmost reluctance to disclose the nature of his report and proposals. It is almost certain that the divergent views on Egyptian policy entertained by the two sections of the Cabinet have been brought to the point of rupture by their recent deliberations, and an open schism on the subject may before long be the result. is understood that the question in debate is substantially the adoption of a closer, weightier, and more enduring responsibility in and for Egypt or a complete and immediate abandonment of that country after the success or failure of the primary object of Lord Wolseley's 1 Sir Samuel Baker at Ipswich, October 28. It expedition has been accomplished. Such being, as we believe, the state of the case, every effort will be made by Mr Gladstone to postpone till next spring the promised announcement to Parliament of the intentions of Government with respect to Egyptian finance. Meanwhile, as we have said, public attention is exclusively directed to the negotiations between Mr Gladstone and Lord Granville on the one side, and Lord Salisbury and Sir Stafford Northcote on the other, upon the vital question of the redistribution of political power in the three kingdoms. The responsibility which has thus been thrust upon, rather than assumed by, our leaders, is very great; and the courage they have displayed in accepting it, and in trusting, after all that has occurred during the past two years, to the good faith and honour of their political opponents, merits from their supporters the warmest acknowledgment, and the most unflinching confidence. If we venture, in concluding these observations on the crisis, to suggest one or two points for their consideration, it is in the belief that in so doing we may strengthen, not weaken, their hands in the performance of their arduous and delicate task. Between the extremes of leaving the present excessive Irish representation intact, and reducing it to its exact numerical proportion of ninety-five, it seems to us that an equitable mean would be found by falling back upon the number of seats allotted to that kingdom by the Act of Union-100; procuring thus five of the seats required, by general consent, for Scotland. If from the other overrepresented "division of the coun try," as Mr Gladstone called it in his speech on the second reading of the Franchise Bill-Wales, three members be subtracted, and two members be added to the total number of the House, raising it to 660, Scotland might receive ten additional members, and an equitable proportion of representation be secured between the four component parts of the United Kingdom. With respect to the disfranchisement and enfranchisement of boroughs, and the influence of those operations on the largely augmented county constituencies, we are disposed to think that the best means of arriving at a settlement favourable to the fair representation of all classes and interests would be the creation of a new class of constituencies, to be called districts, returning one member each, with a population of about 40,000, and retaining the name of the principal borough merged in it, or, where it contains some considerable unrepresented town, then being known by its name-as, for instance, the Keighley, or Rotherham, or Torquay District. however, after full consideration, our negotiators arrive at the same general end by other means, we earnestly hope that, whatever schemes and systems may have found favour with different schools of Conservative politicians, our party will, as a whole, be as ready as we are to sacrifice their preferences for this or that method of redistribution, and give in their adherence to that measure which, in a constitutional crisis of no common magnitude and acuteness, shall have received the approbation, or at least the sanction, of our trusted and triumphant leaders. If, INDEX TO VOL. CXXXVI. A dinner at the Pavilion, Brighton, 569. Abolition of purchase, 319-its cost, 321 ALEXANDER NESBITT, EX-SCHOOLMASTER, 632. AMERICAN FINANCE, THE FREEBOOTERS American oil-wells, 346 et seq. An enigma in Buonaparte's career, 578. ARMY, THE PEOPLE AND THE, 317-rea- Army purchase system, how it originated, ARTIST'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY, AN, 614. BERLIN IN 1884, Part I., 1-habits of CAPITAL ABROAD, SCOTTISH, 468. Central Asia: despatches from the Am- Churchill, Lord Randolph, on the Fran- Club-life in Berlin, 238. Colonel Baker, 134-his journeyings in COMING INTO PORT, by W. W. S., 522. 66 663. 'Correspondence and Diaries of the Right Cossack Cradle-song: "Spi, Mladenets County electorate of United Kingdom, 530. Court festivities in Berlin, 235. Court-life in the time of George IV., 569. Criminal procedure, differences between CONCLUSION, 799-efforts to keep |